9. The various Jewish festivals, like the Sabbath, were detached from their original relation to nature and turned into historical memorials, eloquent testimonies to the great works of God and of Israel’s power of rejuvenation. The Passover was originally the spring festival of the shepherds when they hallowed the thresholds,(1481) but was later identified with the agricultural Feast of Unleavened Bread in Palestine, and at an early period was further transformed into a festival of redemption. The former rites of consecration of tent and herd were taken as symbols of the wondrous deliverance of the Hebrews from the Egyptian yoke. The sacrifice of the “passing over the threshold,” with the sprinkling of the blood on the doorposts and lintels of each house, observed each spring exactly as is still done among the semi-pagan inhabitants of Syria and Arabia, was reinterpreted. According to the Mosaic code it indicated the wondrous passing of the angel of death over the thresholds of the Israelites in Egypt, while he entered the homes of the Egyptians to slay the first-born and avenge the wrongs of Israel.(1482) Likewise the cakes of bread without leaven (the _Mazzoth_) baked for the festival were taken as reminders of the hasty exodus of the fathers from the land of oppression. Thus the spring festival became a memorial of the springtime of liberty for the nation and at the same time a consecration of the Jewish home to the covenant God of Israel. God was to enter the Jewish home as He did in Egypt, as the Redeemer and Protector of Israel. Young and old listened with perennial interest to the story of the deliverance, offering praise for the wonders of the past and voicing their confidence in the future redemption from oppression and woe. However burdensome the Passover minutiæ, especially in regard to the prohibition of leaven, became to the Jewish household, the predominant feature was always an exuberance of joy. In the darkest days of medievalism the synagogue and home resounded with song and thanksgiving, and the young imbibed the joy and comfort of their elders through the beautiful symbols of the feast and the richly adorned tale of the deliverance (the _Haggadah_). The Passover feast with its “night of divine watching” endowed the Jew ever anew with endurance during the dark night of medieval tyranny, and with faith in “the Keeper of Israel who slumbereth not nor sleepeth.”(1483) Moreover, as the springtide of nature fills each creature with joy and hope, so Israel’s feast of redemption promises the great day of liberty to those who still chafe under the yoke of oppression. The modern Jew is beginning to see in the reawakening of his religious and social life in western lands the token of the future liberation of all mankind.(1484) The Passover feast brings him the clear and hopeful message of freedom for humanity from all bondage of body and of spirit.